CHA represents the largest non-profit health care provider in America.

Promotes “social justice”

Campaign contributions to Democratic politicians have been a subject of controversy.

Has supported a Democratic Senate health care bill that would provide taxpayer funding for abortions.

Established
in 1915 as the
Catholic Hospital Association, the
Catholic Health Association of the United States (CHA) seeks to
“advance [America's] Catholic health ministry”—consisting of more than 600 hospitals and 1,400 long-term care and
other health facilities in all 50 states—“in
caring for people and communities” nationwide. CHA's major areas of focus include the following:

* Advocacy and the Affordable
Care Act: Collaborating with advocates from Catholic health
systems and
facilities across the United States, CHA strives to create “a more just
and compassionate health care
system” by shaping the content of federal
legislation and policies. In particular, the Association has been
working for decades on behalf of health care reform that “protects life
and
expands coverage to the greatest possible number of people in our
country.” Notably, CHA believes that the key to achieving this goal is
to expand the role of government—rather than the
free market—in the health care industry. Thus, by CHA's reckoning, the
Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act of 2010—i.e., Obamacare—is “not perfect” but
“represents a good start toward providing access to everyone.”

* Diversity
& Health Disparities: CHA's
Special Committee on Diversity and Health Disparities advises the
Association's board and staff on how to “ensure that traditionally
underrepresented groups have meaningful opportunities for leadership
positions.” Moreover, the Committee aims to eliminate “the existence of racial and ethnic
disparities in health outcomes, access to care, and receipt of
quality health care.”

* Environment: Citing a “substantial body of
scientific knowledge” indicating “unequivocal[ly]” that human industrial activity contributes heavily to “the escalating
problem of global warming,” CHA seeks to “reduce the environmental burden of the health care”
that its member institutions provide. Hospitals are especially culpable, says the Association, because their
high levels of energy usage makes them “major contributors to climate
change.” Further, CHA warns that the incidence of “many diseases will surge as the
atmosphere heats up.”

Catholics in industrialized nations such as the U.S. also have a moral obligation to see themselves
as “responsible
for the fate of the world's poor,” says CHA, urging “global
solidarity” in aiding the impoverished by means of service and wealth
redistribution.

For an overview of additional issues upon which CHA's work is focused, click here.

Though CHA is formally opposed to abortion, over the years a number of its governing board
members have made campaign contributions to pro-abortion Democratic
politicians directly involved in the healthcare-reform effort—all of
whom have received 100% ratings from abortion-rights organizations like NARAL and Planned
Parenthood. A December 2009 report by Newsmax.com,
for instance, revealed that CHA Board of Trustees' members Lloyd Dean,
Lindsey Artola, Roslyn Brock, and Alan Yordy had made such financial
donations, as had CHA Advocacy & Public Policy Committee officials
Joseph Swedish and David Benfer. The beneficiaries of their
contributions included such pro-abortion Members of the U.S. House and
Senate as Maria Cantwell, Chris Dodd, Peter DeFazio, Rosa DeLauro, Richard Durbin, Gabrielle Giffords, Debbie
Halvorson, Joe Lieberman, Patty Murray,
Barack Obama, Debbie Stabenow, and Ron
Wyden.

When Obamacare was passed in 2010, the
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and every major
pro-life
group in America warned that the new law clearly left open the
possibility that abortions could be funded by federal dollars. (They
were correct, as is explained here.) By contrast, CHA, under the leadership of its president
and CEO, Sister
Carol Keehan, enthusiastically supported
the statute and denied that it would permit such funding.

On
March 17, 2010, Kansas City Archbishop Joseph Nauman chided
Sister Keehan and CHA for being either “incredibly naive or
disingenuous” in claiming that Obamacare expressly forbade the use of
government funds for abortions. According to Nauman, the position staked
out by
Keehan and CHA “provides cover for any member of the House who
chooses to buckle under the pressure of the President and the
Democratic leadership to accept government funding of abortion,”
and would allow such legislators to “defend themselves by pointing
out that Catholic Health Care leaders recommended they vote for the
bill.”

Deal Hudson, director of the Morley Institute, attributed CHA’s support for Obamacare to an “apparent vested interest in seeing the bill passed,”
since the Association “would receive federal money for its hospitals” to
perform abortions. Along the same lines, Jack Smithat of The Catholic Key Blog characterized CHA as a “trade organization” with “a vested
financial interest in the outcome of the health care debate.”

In 2012
the Obama administration announced that the Affordable Care Act would
not exempt religious organizations from its mandate that all employee
health care policies must cover the cost of contraceptives and
abortifacients. Initially, CHA joined the Catholic Bishops in condemning
the mandate. But eventually the Association negotiated with the Obama
administration to
achieve a so-called
“accommodation”
whereby religious organizations would not have to offer insurance plans
that included contraceptive/abortifacient coverage. Instead, insurers
would be required to provide such coverage free-of-charge, and separate from their health care policies, to any female enrollees who wanted it. The Bishops noted that this bargain was meaningless, given that the hidden cost of the “free” items would
obviously be passed on to consumers. Nevertheless, Sister Keehan announced that CHA was “very pleased with the ... resolution ... that protects the religious liberty and conscience
rights of Catholic institutions.”